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One View on Immigration

Immigration is a really hot topic in the world right now, even more so in the United States where we all started as immigrants except for the American Indians. Seems a bit strange that the country founded by immigrants would now be trying to keep immigrants out doesn’t it? Not when you actually look at the details.

This country has always served as a haven for those that have been persecuted by their own governments for reasons of religious or political differences, as well as those that just wish for a better life than is possible in their home country, the American Dream if you will.

The problem in the US is with the immigrants that do not come into our country by the legal processes put into place. They cross illegally for whatever reason, carrying God knows what or who with them. Sometimes they even just send their children, unattended to cross into the US. They will come here to ‘visit’ while pregnant and stay until the child is born, giving the child US citizenship. This happens from many, many countries in Europe as well as South America.

If you are actually able to get to the real numbers involved, you would be shocked. In 2018, according to Homeland Security, over 404,000 people were apprehended at US borders by less than 20, 000 border patrol agents (about 20 per agent). That’s just 1 year – if you add the last 5 years together it comes to a whopping 1,954,257 people! Folks, just in case you read that wrong, that’s almost 2 million people in 5 years! Don’t be misled – these are just the illegal people, not the ones coming in the ‘right’ way.

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I am not going to tell you that they steal away the jobs of honest Americans because where I live, the ‘honest Americans’ are too damn high and mighty to do the jobs that the immigrants I’ve witnessed are doing, and they work their proverbial arse off! They work in farm fields, slaughter houses, fisheries, and chicken farms and plants doing some of the jobs that really no one wants to do.

Want proof? Walk into any average high school and ask a few students if they would take a job cutting the heads off of chickens for 8 hours a day for minimum wage, or plucking their feathers? Or maybe a job making their way up and down the rows of 10 acre farm field cutting the top off of tobacco plants in literally 100 degree weather?

I am also not going to tell you that they are all criminals: drug dealers, murderers, rapists. It’s NOT true. The majority really are just hard working people that want a better life for themselves and their children. The process to enter the US as a legal immigrant is long and harsh, but history has proven that it needs to be. I have no issues with those that use the system and come in legally. I love and welcome them all, no matter where they be from.

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Some immigrants integrate very easily into our society and add to it tremendously with their love and zest for a different life that is hopefully better. They are genuinely glad to be a in a country with more opportunities than they were previously exposed to. People like this flourish in the US – in happiness if not money.

Others? Well, they seem to want the US to observe the same laws that they left behind in their old country, and refuse any attempts at compromise or explanation as to why it is different here. As a logical minded person, I find this infuriating! They came her for better, but then want it the same? Huh? “That don’t make no sense.” (Martin Lawrence in the movie Life with Eddie Murphy)

The small town I live near, Mayfield, Kentucky, has around 10k-15k people living in it and, in the last 10 years, has exploded with new immigrants from various countries. Previously most of the non- English speaking ‘here about’ were of Mexican descent, but we now have a very large Arab speaking community as well as fast growing Asian community. (Around here we consider Yankees to be foreigners too, but I won’t count them here – LOL)

I, for one, absolutely LOVE the new people, restaurants, and businesses that are moving in! It means new and exciting foods to try (perfect excuses for me to go to lunch with the girls!), and lots of new and exciting variety-type stores are popping up. I am even seeing more fabulous variety in the items showing up in my favorite thrift stores! (I’m thinking I could go broke this way.)

The illegal immigrants, well, I feel for them, I truly do, but they have started their US citizenship quest all wrong. By breaking our laws. If you got hired to do something and the very first day you broke the rules ON PURPOSE, how long do you think you would be employed? I would wager not too darn long. No recommendations, no severance, just bye.

The people complaining about how they are being treated in the holding centers are to be listened to, but with ‘a grain of salt’ as they say. One must remember that they are there because they broke the law, not because they are waiting to take some written test or something. I agree, that they should not be separated from family, but they shouldn’t break the law either. I am a firm believer in “Don’t do the Crime if you can’t do the Time”. I apply this to myself as well.

Where this view puts me in the spectrum of politics I don’t know. The differences in people and cultures are what make this country so amazing and full of possibilities for anyone willing to work for what they want. Unless you are a full blooded Native American Indian, you are an immigrant. It’s as plain as that. No if’s, no ‘my family came over on the Mayflower’ (they were thieves and murderers), none of that bullsnot. One single ancestor not born on US soil makes you, and me, immigrants. So cut them a break, huh?

Please let me know your thoughts and feelings on this, I would love to hear from some people in other areas of the US and world.